'Beauty and the Beast' arrived on movie screens 23 years ago and was transformed into a stage musical three years later.

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Perhaps because it's a "tale as old as time," 20 years after its Broadway debut and almost 23 years since the arrival of the animated movie classic, "Beauty and the Beast" is a story that still is dazzling audiences.

The musical is itself an international sensation, based on the wildly successful 1991 Disney film of the same name, also the first animated feature to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Since opening on Broadway in 1994, Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" has played to more than 35 million people in 22 countries and has been translated into nine languages.